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Genieve Figgis is just going with the flow

A darling of the New York scene, the artist insists she is unconcerned that she hasn’t earned the same recognition at home in Ireland

Pavel Barter

Home comforts: Figgis admits that some might find her studio a little scaryBRYAN MEADE

The Sunday Times, December 16 2018, 12:01am

In a large warehouse space somewhere in the depths of Wicklow, Genieve Figgis’s acrylics and oils litter the floor. There’s an antique four-poster bed, which looks more like a living sculpture than furniture, and shelves stocked with books on art and history. Melting faces leer from the canvases lining the walls: debauched, dreamlike scenes in which macabre characters, their faces pastel-bleached, grin at the viewer. These figurative aliens walk a tightrope between horror and humour; behind each nightmare, there’s a knowing wink. Figgis’s studio space is both transfixing and unsettling.

“I never fitted in with tradition,” says the Dublin artist. “My work is always flowing, the way the paint flows. It looks a little eerie, scary, and sometimes very pretty. I don’t have any control…

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